An information processing apparatus able to recover consistency between file entity data and file management information when detecting an inconsistency therebetween at start-up of the apparatus, while reducing unavailable time of the apparatus as much as possible. A CPU of the information processing apparatus executes a base program stored in a storage unit to check for an abnormality in consistency between file entity data and file management information which are stored in another storage unit. If an abnormality is detected, the CPU executes a program for degeneracy operation stored in still another storage unit to perform a degeneracy operation, and recovers the consistency.